


Atlantis

by Udunie



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Sex, Aliens, M/M, Other, Tentacles, discussion of slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-03-02 19:03:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13324536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Udunie/pseuds/Udunie
Summary: For the first time since Carla told him about it, he felt nervous. Sure, the toads seemed to have miraculous technology, but… What if they couldn’t heal him? What if he was just past the point of no return?Kitt wasn’t sure that he could survive it if he got his hopes up over nothing.And what if it worked? Would he even know how to walk? The last time he stood on his feet had been… almost ten year ago. What would he do? Could he get a job?And if he tested positive for whatever they wanted? What the hell then?He got dizzy just thinking about the possibilities, none of them looking easy. They were almost at the ramp leading to the open, gaping door.“Well, you brought me this far, we might as well go inside,” he said, sounding a lot more confident than he felt.I have nothing to lose - he reminded himself. That was true at least.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nia_Kantorka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nia_Kantorka/gifts).



> This is for the lovely Nia_Kantorka who bid on me on the Fuck2k17 charity auction! I hope you will like it!
> 
> All my love to Emma for keeping me on track, and my thanks to L, D and J who helped with the brainstorming <3

The Earth was already a pretty bad place when  _ they  _ arrived, the post capitalistic ruins of society, the overpopulation, the almost complete destruction of the environment…

When Kitt first heard about the huge alien spaceship hovering over New York, his only thought was ‘I hope they make it quick.’

He wanted to go out and see it for himself, a small part of him still curious, but he was pretty sure his dad sold his wheelchair for food - or booze - and he wasn’t really in the mood for crawling to the window in the living room.

Aunt Carla arrived with the Big News the next afternoon.

“Darling! You won’t believe this! There was a broadcast! The aliens spoke to us, and not just here, apparently they did it all around the world!”

“Seriously?” They didn’t have a tv anymore, and he felt a pang of envy towards Carla for still having such luxuries. “What do they want?” He didn’t think their world had anything to give to a civilization that had the technology to come all the way here.

She sat down on the edge of his bed, taking his hand, he could feel it faintly. The numbness had been getting worse and worse lately. Kitt knew that soon it would cover all of him and then it would be over. He squeezed her fingers as hard as he could, which was not hard at all.

“They said… Kitt, I have no idea if you would want to do it, but they said they will be setting up centers and they would be healing anyone who went there.”

Kitt didn’t know what to say. It sounded too good to be true. His brain was blanking out at the prospect.

“There’s a catch, tough,” Carla continued, her voice yanking him back to reality. 

Of course. Of course there would be a catch.

“They are looking for… certain people. People who have some sort of genetic match. I didn’t understand all the science mojo, but they said they would be taking anyone who tested positive.”

“Taking them for what?”

That was the important question, wasn’t it? Kitt wasn’t surprised that there was a price, but he wanted to know what it was down to the penny before getting himself into something that he couldn’t get out of.

Carla’s eyes skidded away from him for a second, and if anything, that gave Kitt a bad feeling. Carla was the sort of person who didn’t shy away from the lewdest language, so it had to be  _ something _ .

“Well… for breeding purposes, if what they are saying is true.”

Huh.

***

Kitt wasn’t an idiot, but he wasn’t naive either. It’s been three days since he last saw his father. It wasn’t the first time he stayed away for a while, except Kitt was over nineteen now. For all intents and purposes, his father had no more obligations to take care of him, and there was no one to turn to if he never came back. Not like he was usually much help anyway.

And he couldn’t take care of himself. If not for Carla’s visits and the food she somehow procured for him, he would have already starved to death, and even if he didn’t, he knew that it would happen anyway; his body was growing a little bit weaker every day… Even if there was a treatment somehow, somewhere - and he knew there wasn’t - he wouldn’t have the funds to get it, not when getting antibiotics required a small fortune.

What choice did he really have? 

Carla told him what was happening. She told him about how the military tried to take out the ships and failed miserably. How smaller ships touched ground on various points of the world. The aliens - the media already called them ‘toads’ - seemed to be keeping their promise, and apparently everything was buzzing with the stories of miraculous recoveries. And, with the fact that about 5-10 percent of the people going into the ships were not returning.

Kitt spent a whole night staring at his ceiling, thinking. 

By the time the sun rose, he made his decision.

***

“I don’t know how to get there, he took my wheelchair,” was the first thing he told Carla in the morning. 

She didn’t ask what he meant, didn’t try to talk him out of it or give him pointless warnings.

“That just means I will have to carry you,” she said, and in that moment Kitt wished he was strong enough to hug her properly.

***

The city had only gotten worse since the last time Kitt had been out and about. The pavement was covered with litter and trash, there were homeless people huddling in the doorways of shops. Some of them were open, but most had boarded or broken windows.

Carla hitched him a bit higher to get a better grip, and Kitt put his thin arms around her shoulders with effort. Carla had been working in the mines before she was called Carla, and it still showed. Even though Kitt probably didn’t weight as much as a normal person, what with his muscles mostly wasted away to nothing, he was still a whole person, but Carla didn’t seem to care, she didn’t even break a sweat.

“Will you… Do you want to ask them if they would…” Kitt didn’t know how to phrase the question, he didn’t even know why he bothered, especially when he was at her mercy. Carla could just drop him then and there and it would truly be over for him.

But Carla didn’t get angry. She made a funny little face that Kitt couldn’t read and then shrugged.

“I’m not sure it’s worth it. I mean, I could, but… Sure, this place is fucked up and dangerous, but I intend to see it through, whatever happens to it. And honestly, it took a long time to figure myself out, would be a shame to waste all that effort.”

Kitt nodded against her chest, wondering why he didn’t feel the same. Then again, he thought that Carla was happy here once, before things went to shit, but Kitt couldn’t remember ever being anything other than miserable.

He didn’t want to… to become a sexslave or something, sure, but… he had nothing to lose at this point.

It took them almost an hour to get to the city centre. It used to be a park, but the trees were cut out long ago when people had nothing to heat with during winter, so it was just… a barren patch of land with huts pulled up here and there made of rubbish.

Except. Except now there was a skyscraper in the middle of it that Kitt couldn’t recall seeing before. It took him a second or two to realize that it wasn’t a building. It was the ship. It was shaped like an elongated egg with one end flat, and it was made of some shiny metal. Shiny enough that Kitt thought it was glass at first.

Someone grabbed the hem of Carla’s dress, asking for money or food or  _ anything _ . She didn’t reply, just jerked away, walking faster.

“Almost there,” she said. “Last chance to change your mind.”

For the first time since Carla told him about it, he felt nervous. Sure, the toads seemed to have miraculous technology, but… What if they couldn’t heal him? What if he was just past the point of no return? 

Kitt wasn’t sure that he could survive it if he got his hopes up over nothing.

And what if it worked? Would he even know how to walk? The last time he stood on his feet had been… almost ten year ago. What would he do? Could he get a job?

And if he tested positive for whatever they wanted? What the hell then? 

He got dizzy just thinking about the possibilities, none of them looking easy. They were almost at the ramp leading to the open, gaping door.

“Well, you brought me this far, we might as well go inside,” he said, sounding a lot more confident than he felt.

_ I have nothing to lose _ \- he reminded himself. That was true at least.

***

Kitt wasn’t sure what he expected, but the inside of the ship - at least the part right by the door - was a big, eggshell colored waiting room. It didn’t look high-tech or alien or anything. It looked… comfortable. There were padded benches scattered around, and it was clean, which was more than Kitt could say about the majority of the waiting rooms he ever visited.

It would have looked like an idyllic commercial from ‘before’ if not for the aliens walking around, talking to people.

“Wow,” Kitt said, even as Carla strode forward, finding them an empty bench. The place wasn’t crowded, but it was… pretty full. There had to be about a hundred people waiting about. Some came with their families, some came in wheelchairs or with walking sticks. Nobody even looked at him being carried around.

That was a good thing, because Kitt couldn’t tear his gaze away from the aliens. They were huge, around seven feet tall. They were wearing hulking, white, armored suits, making them look like robots, except for the little face windows. 

Kitt had been worried that they would be… much more alien. Like, maybe with three heads, or… or just huge, shapeless blobs. But from what he could see they were vaguely humanoid, with two feet and two arms. 

Okay, and with something that had to be a tail, just long enough to touch the ground as they walked.

“Wow, indeed,” Carla said, setting him down and sitting beside him. “What do you think?”

Kitt knew she wanted to ask again if he was sure about this, and he was grateful that she didn’t.

“I think…” he took another look around. There was a line of doors at the back wall, and as he watched one open, an old lady walking out. She was a bit shaky, but the toad beside her held her hand as she made her way back to her family. She looked more confident with every step she took, and someone who looked like her daughter fell on her, crying from joy… “I think they aren’t that bad.”

Carla hummed in agreement beside him.

It only took a few moments for one of the aliens to approach them.

From up close Kitt understood why they were called toads. His - or her, or whatever, - face was almost completely flat. Lizard like. He had narrow slits for a nose and a thin lipped mouth... And big eyes that were nearly filled with black pupils that only had a thin ring of gold around them.

“Good morning,” the alien said. Well, the speakers on the alien’s suit said, in a toneless, computer generated voice. Kitt watched his mouth move, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t speaking English.

“Hello,” Carla said when Kitt was too dumbstruck to reply. 

“Are you both patients?” 

Carla shook her head quickly.

“Nope, just him. I’m only here for moral support.”

The toad looked at Kitt questioningly, and he belatedly nodded.

“An examination room is free,” he said. Kitt had no idea how he knew. Maybe he had an earpiece. If he even had ears. It was hard to tell.

The toad seemed to be waiting for him to say something, so he swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“Okay. I-I’m ready.”

The alien blinked at him.

“Excellent.”

There was an awkward pause before Carla spoke up.

“Um. He can’t walk. Do you want me to…?”

The alien shook his head, slowly, like he wasn’t familiar with the gesture.

“No, thank you,” he said, and then he hoisted Kitt up carefully and like he didn’t weigh more than a feather. He was still not used to that, and he felt himself flush despite his best effort. He missed his wheelchair.

The alien was walking with him towards the doors in the back, and Kitt spent the few seconds it took to look at his face more closely. His skin was very light brown, and it looked smooth, completely hairless. Kitt wondered if they found humans ugly, what with their hair and everything.

But he wasn’t going to ask that.

The door slid open as soon as they reached it, and he could feel his heart flutter in his chest. This was it.

He tried to take deep breaths to stay calm, but it was hard.

The room was small, with some kind of machine in the middle. Now  _ this _ , this looked alien. There was an… examination table of sorts in the middle, a rectangular slab of white metal or maybe plastic. But it seemed to be floating in thin air, or at least Kitt couldn’t see anything supporting it.

Above - or more like, around it - was a white ring no thicker than his wrist... That also wasn’t connected to anything he could see. 

Kitt bit his lip to stop himself from cursing.

Beside the ‘bed’ there was a range of holographic screens, showing graphs and a writing he couldn’t recognize. Despite how alien everything looked, it still reminded him of a hospital. Kitt hated hospitals.

The alien laid him on the bed carefully, and for a second his body went tense, scared it wouldn’t be able to hold him, like some cheap magic trick. But it did, feeling firm under his back.

“First, you are going to be examined,” the toad told him, turning to the screens. “To determine the proper cure.”

“Okay, I… okay,” Kitt said, he knew he sounded dumb, but he couldn’t help it. The nerves made him feel like his skull was stuffed with cotton.

“Please stay still.”

That was all the warning he got before the ring started moving, spinning around the bed, faster and faster until Kitt’s eyes blurred the motion into a single, solid dome above him. The machine didn’t make a sound, and if anything - for some reason - that freaked him out the most… He was used to human inventions whirring and clicking and making all the appropriate noises. He didn’t have time to work himself up into a panic, thankfully; the ring slowed down and stopped in what had to be less than a minute.

Kitt sucked in a huge gulp of air, only now noticing that he’d been too afraid to even breathe.

He turned his head, seeing one of the screens showing an outline of his body, certain areas of him flashing in different colors, his spine highlighted in turquoise.

“Can you… can you fix it?” he asked, unable to keep quiet anymore. A part of his brain was still convinced that they couldn’t possibly be able to help. How could they, when nothing and nobody on his planet could?

The alien leaned a bit closer to the screens, then nodded decisively.

“Yes. But first we have to test you for compatibility. If you are compatible, you are coming with us and we will give you the cure on the ship.”

Kitt closed his eyes. He knew… he knew it made sense from their perspective. They probably didn’t want anyone making a break for it. And it wasn’t like they made a secret of their intentions. Still, he could feel his eyes burning. He blinked until it went away.

The toad turned to him with a little device in his hand. It looked like a roll-on deodorant and he quickly pushed it across the back of his hand.

Kitt was still watching the screen, so he saw the exact moment when lines of text appeared in that strange language. They were flashing in a neon teal color and the toad by his side looked startled.

That couldn’t be good.

“What’s going on?” Kitt asked, he could see that the alien was talking, but since nothing came out of his speakers, he imagined it wasn’t meant for his ears.

“It is a mistake,” he said finally, when he was finished with the other conversation, and repeated the test. Everything stayed glaringly teal.

Great.

***

Satim was making the usual rounds around the ship when he was informed of some disturbance on the treatment level. It wasn’t really something that he could help with - it sounded like the technicians were already on it - but he went to check it out for himself, just in case.

He wasn’t given command of this ship to sit in his office and read reports all day.

He slipped into the treatment chamber in question without anyone noticing him. Or at least any of the crew. There was an operator, an administrator and two technicians arguing over the equipment. Only the human laying on the table noticed him, their eyes meeting.

The young human was frail looking with dark messy hair and eyes that reminded him of storm clouds. It took Satim a second to realize that he looked scared, and another to understand why.

“Report,” he said, taking care to keep his com on so that his words were translated into the Earth language.

His men jumped, only just noticing that he was standing behind them. Katrik was already shooting off some rapidfire explanation filled with technical jargon, but Satim put up a hand to stop him mid sentence. 

“Use your coms,” he said, feeling mildly annoyed. Not only was it in the regulations, it was only polite.

Katrik looked startled, but then nodded sheepishly.

“Yes, sir. The equipment seems to be defective. Or at least the sampler, though technician Tesritk seems to think it’s the programming, but that just  _ can’t  _ be it, and he refuses to listen...”

Satim sighed, glancing at the human for just a split second, but long enough to make sure that he was a bit calmer now that he could understand what was happening around him.

“What is the error?” Satim asked, looking at the operator.

“We are getting a false positive, sir,” he said, motioning to the screens. 

Ah. Satim looked at the graphs closer. The scale they were using to measure human compatibility was based on preliminary tests and surveys conducted during the last decade, and although they were highly accurate, they were still only predictions. According to the data, humans should fall on a scale from 0 to 80, and anyone 65 or above should be considered compatible enough to be brought back. The overwhelming majority of the population moved in the 30-45 range, but the screens were telling him that the human he was looking at measured a whooping 92.

He would have wrote it off as an error… if he hadn’t talked to the commander on the carrier last night.

“It’s not a false positive,” he said finally. Katrik made a little noise of disbelief, but wasn’t fool enough to question his captain.

“While the scale is accurate, there had been three instances reported from the other ships of humans with unusually high compatibility so far. Further tests proved that the results were correct,” Satim explained.

There was a second of silence.

“What does that mean?” asked the boy, his voice distorted a bit by the translator.

Satim looked at the human, satisfied to see that he was following everything.

He walked up to him, trying to look a little less imposing that he knew he seemed to the smaller species.

“It means that you are coming with us, and I will personally make sure you will be properly cared for.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Emma for having my back! <3

Satim didn’t expect the boy to reach out, grabbing his wrist. In his experience so far, the species seemed to be a bit...prejudiced against his race. 

“I… I came with someone! Can I say goodbye?” the boy asked, his eyes looking huge in his narrow face. The translation program failed to properly convey whatever emotion was in his voice, but Satim could see his desperation clearly enough.

“Of course,” he promised, nodding at the operator, who hurried off to fetch the companion of the boy. 

Satim never questioned their mission - he wouldn’t have gotten a ship if he did - but he knew it was hard for humans who were selected. He could understand, and from his point of view, the best he could do for them was to make sure that their lives would be spent in comfort and as much happiness as their new homes could give them. For some reason this frail, sick human boy drove that point home more than anything, and he realized how serious he’d been when he promised to look after him.

“You are dismissed,” he told the rest of the crew, and they quickly followed his orders, though he could catch Katrik’s questioning gaze. He might have to talk to him later to explain himself; it wasn’t protocol for a captain to take such a hands-on role, but Satim wasn’t sure how he could justify his behaviour.

The door to the waiting area opened, another human walking in. Satim couldn’t tell their gender at first, confused by the lack of mammary glands, despite the presentation he came to associate with females.

Then he saw the expression on the new human’s face as they looked at the boy, and decided that they had to be a mother of sorts.

“What happened?” she asked, rushing over to the boy’s side and taking his hand. She shot a rather hostile look at Satim, but he didn’t get offended. He imagined sometimes it was even harder for those who were left behind with their loved ones gone.

“I’m gonna have to go,” the boy said, hauling himself into a sitting position with some difficulty. 

Her eyes rounded with shock and she pulled him close into a hug. It wasn’t a form of contact Satim’s species practiced, but he’d come to realize that they would have to include it in their informational material, as it seemed to be important for humans. He had to get that in his report as well.

The operator shifted closer to Satim.

“Sir, there is a queue,” he said quietly through the intercom. For once he didn’t feel the usual exasperation at his crew for not using the coms, he wanted to make sure that the humans had enough time to say their goodbyes.

He nodded at the operator.

“Just one more minute and I will give you back your room,” Satim said. The operator looked at him sideways. It would have been his job to take humans to the upper levels for cryo, and he clearly didn’t understand why his captain was suddenly taking over.

Satim wanted to swear, but held himself back. The smart thing to do would have been to leave now and let his man do what he was supposed to, but… but he made a promise, didn’t he? And after all, this particular boy had unusually high compatibility.

“We have taken your station long enough, I would rather you get back to screening,” he explained, though it didn’t sound too convincing even to his own ears.

The operator blinked at him but then nodded, and Satim was thankful they weren’t getting into an argument. He might have been captain, but he was also reliant on his crew’s trust and doing their job according to protocol. Protocol that he currently wasn’t following.

“I’m sorry, but we will have to proceed,” he said into the com. The humans winced, breaking apart. The woman gave the boy a kiss on the forehead before standing up straight. She looked at Satim, her eyes narrowed, and he didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that she was trying to figure out which one of them would win in a fight.

Despite her impressive stature, Satim knew he would, but he really wasn’t in the mood to test it, so he nodded his head at her.

“I will personally take care of him,” he said.

“You better,” she said. She made a v with two of her fingers, lifted them to her eyes and then pointed them at Satin. He wasn’t familiar with the gesture, but he was pretty sure he had just been threatened.

The boy made a wet snort.

“Bye, Carla,” he said, finally. 

She gave him a sad little smile and then she turned on her heels, her back rigid as she strolled out of the room without looking back.

Satim turned to the boy, realizing a new problem. The operators usually used the tables to transport selected humans to the upper levels, but he could hardly take it if he wanted work to go on.

“Are you able to walk?” he asked the boy. He was still looking at the closed door, chewing at his lower lip, and Satim had to repeat the question before he received and answer.

“Um. No.”

“Sir, do you want me to…?” the operator asked uncertainty, but Satim held up his hand.

“No, no we held you up for too long,” he said. “I will carry you,” he told the boy.

To his surprise, the corner of his mouth twitched into a reluctant smile.

“Third time's the charm,” he said, though Satim had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

***

For the third time that day, Kitt held on as best as he could as someone carried him around like a frail maiden. His mind was blank for the most part, trying to work out what the proper response to the situation was and coming up empty.

God, he already missed Carla. That was the single thought that kept repeating in his head, and it made him realize that… that was pretty much  _ it _ . There was nothing else that he was scared of losing. He tried thinking about his dingy little room, the piles of his parents’ books by the bed he read all a thousand times especially after his father sold the tv… he thought about his  _ father…  _ Nothing.

He took a shuddering breath. If nothing else, the realization that how little he had to miss was more depressing than leaving itself.

He didn’t know that he’d been crying silently, swallowing back his tears until the alien carrying him stopped in front of the door. It slid open noiselessly to something that looked like an elevator.

“Are you well?” the toad asked. With the computer generated English, Kitt had a hard time figuring out the intention behind the questions. Was it only polite conversation? Was it a medical inquiry? He didn’t think it could be actual concern; they’ve only met ten minutes ago.

“Sure,” he lied, looking at the eggshell colored wall and nowhere else.

The alien didn’t reply and a second later the door opened again to a circular corridor. It had doors on both sides, and it was completely empty. Up here everything was white, shiny and smooth. It made Kitt’s head hurt.

The toad carried him to the first door on the right. The inside was small. There was a floating table to the side, and on the back wall there were four, dark windows. It sort of looked like those japanese capsule hotels he’d seen once on the travel channel.

The alien put him down on the table, looking hesitant for a second - as much as Kitt could tell.

“What is your name?” he asked, staring down at him with his large, dark eyes. Kitt didn’t look at his face too long, pinning his gaze to the turquoise insignia in the middle of his chest. The others didn’t have that, did they?

Now that he thought about it, the other toads all seemed to listen to this one, and called him ‘sir’.

“How are you called?” the alien asked again, rephrasing like he worried the translator wasn’t doing a good job.

“Sorry, Kitt. My name is Kitt,” he said hurriedly. Shit he should be paying attention. To his surprise, the alien smiled, and for the first time Kitt had a clear view of his two rows of perfectly white, conical teeth. They didn’t seem very terrifying, but… yeah, a little.

“What’s your name?” Kitt asked, feeling reckless.

“Satim Grkat Naat, I’m the captain for this ship,” the alien told him, making Kitt’s eyes widen.

Captain? Seriously?

“Oh. Hi.”

“And hello to you, Kitt,” he said, still smiling, though thankfully his teeth weren’t showing anymore.

“I will need to change your clothes,” he added, pushing a spot on the wall that opened a compartment Kitt didn’t notice before.

He felt himself flush. Of course, he imagined he wouldn’t be able to stay in his jeans forever, but still. They felt like the last thing connecting him to Earth.

Satim pulled out a piece of white fabric, unfolding it into a thin pair of coveralls. They looked pretty big. Way too big to fit him.

Alright, if this was going to happen, then Kitt wouldn’t just lay there and take it.

He struggled up to a sitting position, pulling his jumper off. The simple act left him tired, his muscles almost refusing to obey him. Satim must have noticed, because he helpfully lifted the back of his t-shirt, saving Kitt the trouble to strain his arms too much.

He immediately started shivering. The room was warm, but well… lately he’d always been cold. It also didn’t help that all he could think about was curling in on himself to be a little less exposed.

Still. The captain waited until he unbuttoned his jeans himself, and he couldn’t help but appreciate it. Kitt took a deep breath, feeling his face heating up and flopped back down, hooking his fingers in the waist of his jeans and pushing them down - underwear and all - in one go. Like a bandaid.

He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to see Satim’s face, not wanting to know if he was  _ looking _ . The alien made no sound, but Kitt could faintly feel him pulling his clothes off the rest of the way. His feet had lost feeling almost completely, but he could still sense the shift as the captain lifted his legs to get his socks off and then pushed them into the coveralls.

Kitt let his body be manhandled into it, the fabric feeling warm despite how thin it looked. It had some sort of zipper on the front, and once he was done, Satim sealed it.

When Kitt looked down, he couldn’t even see the seam.

“It’s a bit big,” he said, just to say something and to break the suffocating silence.

Satim touched a spot on Kitt’s shoulder and he jerked in shock as the coveralls shifted around him, shrinking until it fit him. It wasn’t as form fitting as a rubber suit or something, but it was pretty damn close.

“Wow. That’s neat.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Satim said.

He turned to the wall, opening one of the windows window and rolling out a human sized container. It didn’t look particularly comfortable.

“What’s that?” he asked, feeling his heartbeat picking up again. He almost forgot why they were here.

Satim turned back to him, but didn’t make a move to lift him, thankfully. Not like Kitt had the strength to fight him off.

“This is a capsule, it serves multiple purposes,” he explained. “With the rate we are gathering volunteers, we will be here for about another week, and then it will take another six weeks to reach our planet. The capsule will put you into a cryogenic sleep for the trip. It will also do the healing process. By the time we reach our destination, you will be completely healthy. It will also create new organs that will make it possible for you to bear children.”

“Ah,” Kitt said. “Will… will I look like you?” he asked. He didn’t know why that was important. He just didn’t think he would survive waking up in a completely different body.

Satim looked confused for a second, then shook his head.

“No, no that won’t be necessary. All changes to you will be made internally. There should be no outer difference, though the accelerated regeneration might result in unusual growth of hair and nails.”

Kitt closed his eyes, trying to… he didn’t even know what. Did it matter anyway? It wasn’t like he could do anything. He looked up at the ceiling.

“Are you going to hurt us?” he asked quietly, half sure that the alien wouldn’t even hear him, half scared of what he might answer if he did.

Now Satim walked over, leaning over him.

“No, we are not,” he said. The voice conveying his words was still colorless and robotic, but now Kitt could see his face from up close, and see how serious he was. It almost sounded like another promise.

He wondered if Satim was the kind who kept those.

***

Afterwards, when Kitt was safely asleep in his capsule, Satim confined himself to his rooms. He could access all the reports from there, and he didn’t feel like being on the bridge right now.

He kept thinking about that human boy. Kitt. He didn’t know what he got himself into, this was unlike him…

He did his daily paperwork, looked over the roster for tomorrow and then finally gave in, opening a communication screen.

Despite the advances in technology, it still took almost ten minutes to get a stable connection home, but as soon as Tynik picked up, he knew it was worth it.

“Hey,” Satim said, smiling. He didn’t expect Rokka to be home - probably off to one of his huntings, but just seeing Tynik was enough. “How are you doing?”

His podmate’s face lit up. The three of them hadn’t bonded that long ago - though Satim knew Rokka since they were children - and it was still hard to be apart for so long.

“Well, well, well! My dear captain,” he said, grinning. “You said you wouldn’t have time to call home!”

Satim shifted in his seat.

“Yeah, I know. But I’ve missed you. Rokka?”

“Off hunting. He was here, but today I got home to a note saying they spotted some rilans off the coast, and he couldn’t pass it up,” Tynik said with an eye-roll.

“Typical,” Satim said fondly. Sometimes it felt like Rokka was some sort of wild animal, not content to be in one place for too long. At least not without killing things.

“So,” Tynik said. “Why are you calling, my dear?”

Satim felt like he was standing on thin ice here. 

“I told you already,” he said, knowing that he sounded a lot more defensive than an innocent person should. Tynik gave him  _ a look _ . 

“Ah, I see… So it has nothing with Katrik calling me earlier, telling me how weird you’ve been behaving?”

It wasn’t like Satim couldn’t have expected this. Katrik was Tynik’s cousin, and well. Both of them liked to talk. He sighed.

“Alright, alright. But just for the record, I don’t appreciate you having spies on me,” he said, making Tynik frown.

“Well,  _ just for the record _ , I designed the cyro units, and technically Katrik also works for the Tech Department, where I’m his boss, so excuse me for getting mission reports.”

Satim held up his hands in surrender.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s been a weird day,” he said apologetically. Tynik huffed before smiling again.

“It’s okay. Now, tell me about this weird day you had.”

Satim rubbed his face.

“So, I’ve met this human…”

“Oh, god,” Tynik cut in, his eyes shining. “They are so cute! I mean, I only saw pictures, but… they are so cute.”

Satim smiled. 

“Yes well, his name is Kitt,” he said, knowing that it would make Tynik even more invested…

“Really?” Tynik asked, lighting up. It was a nice coincidence.

“Yes,” Satim said. “He is…” he tried to put his impression of the boy in words, but it was hard. “I can’t really explain. He’s small, even for a human. He has beautiful hair and lovely eyes. They are the color of storms back home…”

Tynik listened to him, putting his chin in his hand and eating up every word.

“He sounds lovely. He sounds perfect, in fact.”

Satim nodded.

He was starting to feel like he would have to talk to the commander about those privileges they promised to commanding officers.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to my lovely Emma who picks my shit up <3

The next time Kitt opened his eyes, there was an unfamiliar toad standing over him - not like any of them had the chance to really become familiar - checking him out with a whirring little device.

“Good morning,” he said, in that colorless, mechanical English. For a second Kitt wondered how he was supposed to communicate in the long run. He imagined the whole species wasn’t in body armor 24/7. Or God knew what kind of time they used here.

He felt his nerves kicking in just thinking about it.

“The adjustments to your body had been successful,” the alien told him, stepping back. “Please follow me to the allocation hall.”

Kitt blinked at him, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

_ Please follow me _ , he said. Like it was that easy.

The toad didn’t look particularly impatient, and the knowledge that he would be willing to wait him out made Kitt act, feeling uncomfortable under his gaze.

He sat up slowly, feeling a bit dizzy, not even realizing how much easier it was to clench his abdominal muscles to help him. His hair fell around his face, brushing his shoulders. Kitt shook his head. Nope. He was not going to get freaked out about that now.

Kitt looked down at his legs. They didn’t look any different from before, skinny and covered in the white of the coveralls. He took a deep breath and tried to remember how to… how to move his toes.

Baby steps.

When he saw his feet move - immediately, without struggle or hardship - he could feel his eyes fill with tears and his heart beat double.

He couldn’t believe it. Even though it was the reason why he even went to the toads, he just… He couldn’t comprehend it.

On the wall a small green light started blinking beside one of the other windows. The alien supervising him acted like he didn’t notice it, but Kitt caught him glancing over quickly. 

Time to go then.

He swung his legs over the edge of the table, shocked by feeling… everything. The fabric of his coveralls, the press of the hard surface on the back of his knees…  _ everything _ .

“I’m gonna fall,” he told the toad. He had no idea if their miracle cure also built up muscle tone or just healed the paralysis eating away at his body.

The alien shifted, nodding his understanding. Kitt didn’t know why he found it comforting that he didn’t try to question or appease him, but he did.

When his feet hit the floor, he almost kneeled over, his knees forgetting how to lock, but the toad’s hand shot out, grabbing his elbow and steadying him for the few seconds it took muscle memory to kick in.

Kitt closed his eyes, breathing hard. He was standing. God, he was  _ standing _ .

The alien stepped to the side, offering him his arm like a gentleman in a historical drama.

Kitt held onto him and took his first step in a decade.

***

The ‘allocation hall’ was the same waiting room where he first entered, only a bit rearranged. It was surprising to see how many people were milling around, all in their white uniforms. Some huddled in groups, some looked devastated, some resigned.

The toad led him to a cream colored bench and helped him sit down. Then he took Kitt’s hand, dropping two little… things into it.

“Please wear these earpieces for easier communications,” he said. 

Ah. Kitt looked at them. They were soft and white and sort of squishy. He couldn’t see any mechanical parts in them, not even tiny holes for speakers, but he put them in his ears a bit doubtfully.

The toad nodded at him, and then left.

The earpieces didn’t mute the background noise around him, despite fitting perfectly.

“Hello,”said someone from behind him, making him jump. “I was wondering if these worked for other languages too.”

Kitt found a woman behind him. She was older, around fifty, her dark, tightly curled hair falling almost to her waist.

“I assume you don’t speak Swahili… Can you understand what I’m saying?”

Kitt had the strangest feeling watching her, and it took him a moment to understand why. He could hear her, he could hear - what he imagined to be - her live, undistorted voice in his ears, but he could see that her mouth was moving differently. A bit out of sync on some of the words.

Holly shit.

“Yeah, I can hear you in English,” he said. She smiled, her teeth very white in her mouth.

“And I can hear you in Swahili!” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m Amina.”

“Hi, I’m Kitt, nice to meet you.”

They shook hands, her palm was warm and her handshake confident.

“Sorry for startling you, I was just curious, and you looked like the least forlorn person around.”

Kitt shuffled over to give her space to sit beside him.

“Yeah, I mean. I can  _ walk _ . I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m… I’m in too much of a shock to be forlorn,” he said, ducking his head. He imagined he  _ should  _ be forlorn and devastated, but yeah. He walked here on his own two feet.

“Ooh! That’s amazing! Congratulations! What was wrong with you, if you don’t mind me asking?”

The way she said it, in past tense, made Kitt feel dizzy for a moment.

He licked his lips, trying to get his brain to work.

“I… was paralytic,” he said in the end, not feeling like delving into the long winded explanation.

It didn’t matter anymore.

She nodded, her eyes understanding.

“You?” Kitt asked. She seemed like one of the oldest people around, but he wasn’t rude enough to point it out.

Amina gave him a cheeky grin.

“Nothing.”

Kitt literally felt his jaw drop.

“ _ Nothing _ ?”

She shook her head.

“I was a research scientist. A pretty good one at that, but after the crash all funding was cut of course,” she said, her eyes lost in the past. “I’ve been working in a food canning factory for the last few years, it was disgusting. It was  _ boring _ .”

Kitt listened to her with his mouth hanging open.

“As soon as I heard about the ships, I knew I had to get on one,” she said, turning to him, her eyes piercing. “You can’t imagine how it feels like to be stuck in a place like that when I know there’s so much of the world out there. So much to learn, so much to explore…”

Kitt nodded dumbly.

“Anyway. I was a match, thankfully… They said I was a bit overage, but were kind enough to let me come,” she finished, smiling.

“That’s…” he didn’t know what to say. Amazing? Stupid? Awesome, in every sense of the word? “That’s  _ something _ .”

Amina laughed.

“I know! I know it sounds like I’m a crazy person, but I promise you I’m not. There was nothing there to stay for, so I didn’t… But I guess everyone felt the same right? The positives outweighing the negatives?”

Kitt thought about his dangy, dirty little room… then thought of Carla with a pang in his chest. 

“Yeah, I guess.”

The hall was slowly filling with people. A pair of girls sat down beside them, looking like they were related, huddled close with tear-streaked cheeks.

Amina sighed.

“Well, in any case, we are in for an adventure, if we can make ourselves look at things the right way.”

***

He chatted with Amina for the better part of the next hour. Kitt learned that she had no family, no children, had her uterus removed when she was young because of medical problems. She seemed curious to find out if she really would be able to get pregnant here. Then again, Amina appeared to be curious about absolutely everything concerning their alien hosts.

Kitt didn’t notice that people stopped arriving until he heard a voice overhead.

“Please look at your arm and move towards the corresponding gates,” it said. Kitt frowned, looking at his arm. To his surprise there was a band of glowing neon-orange around his bicep.

“Ah, I’m blue,” Amina said, sounding a bit disappointed, but already searching for the door she had to go to.

Around the hall - instead of the one big doorway they arrived through back on Earth - there were five sets of smaller ones with colored lights above them.

Kitt noticed the orange one across from where they were sitting, and swallowed.

“It was nice to meet you, Kitt,” Amina said, standing up and shaking his hand again. “I hope we will have a chance to catch up later.”

“That would be great,” Kitt told her, meaning it from the bottom of his heart. She… she wasn’t like Carla at all, but it felt nice to have someone to talk to, even if only for such a short time.

He made his way over to the orange door.

***

There was a pair of toads waiting, towering over the humans queuing up. They didn’t appear to be doing anything other than examining at each of them and then checking their holographic screens, but Kitt had a hard time figuring out what they were actually looking for.

When he came up one of the toads made a little sound in the back of his throat.

What was that supposed to mean?

“Please walk through and take a seat,” said the other one, giving a nonplussed look to his partner. 

Kitt straightened his back - it was amazing how fast those things were coming back to him - and walked through the door. 

He immediately had to squint at the bright sunlight on the other side. It was so bad that he could feel himself tearing up, and it took him a second to be able to focus. It looked like the spaceship was standing on water - or on some platform just below the water, because it felt way too stable to be floating - and there was a boat waiting for him, with one toad sitting in it with some humans. It was flat and elongated, swaying gently on the calm water. 

Kitt couldn’t see dry land anywhere.

“Please come this way,” the alien in the boat said, so Kitt jumped in, taking a seat in the back. There was place for a dozen passengers, and he could see that there were other boats waiting around.

The people around didn’t look talkative, and he felt too nervous to start a conversation, so instead he leaned over the edge, peering into the water. The ocean - it had to be an ocean, since there were no shores in sight, right? - was glassy green, and clear. He could somehow feel that it was deeper than he could even imagine.

The boat jerked slightly as new humans boarded, taking their seats. A boy around Kitt’s age was holding onto the side, like his life depended on it, looking slightly sick.

When the last seat was taken, the toad turned around to face them.

“Please pull in your arms,” he said. Kitt almost found it funny how everyone tucked their hands in, like they were afraid they would be chopped off.

There was a low humming sound and then a shimmering surface appeared around the boat, like a bubble. Immediately the sound of the wind became muted. Someone muttered a curse as the boat shifted, becoming motionless for a second before starting to move, turning away from the ship and speeding off. It was sailing smoothly, and if Kitt didn’t catch a glimpse of another boat departing at the same time he wouldn’t have understood why.

They weren’t sailing, they were hovering above the water. He could actually see the ocean dent under the other boat, like it was bent by some unseen force.

The ocean seemed endless, covering the planet from one edge of the horizon to the other. The sky was blue here too, but Kitt couldn’t help feeling like it was a different shade than back home. 

It took them half an hour to see something other than water. First, there were clouds, tall and white, then small specks in the distance. Kitt watched them grow larger as they drew nearer, amazed.

They were buildings - they had to be - but they were like nothing he’d ever seen before. They were spherical, their surface shimmering and scattering the sunlight like enormous soap bubbles, half submerged in water.

They were bigger than a house would have been on earth, but Kitt couldn’t spot an entrance anywhere. As they came up to them he could see that they were built around what appeared to be the remains of a volcanic island - a circular reef with white sands and stony outcrops.

Someone made an ‘ooh’ sound, and Kitt couldn’t help but agree. It all looked like some bizarre fantasy. 

The boat slowed down, nearing one of the buildings. Looking at the surface of it made Kitt’s head hurt. It looked… it looked transparent - or more like it  _ should  _ be transparent - but it somehow wasn’t, and his brain had a hard time digesting the information.

They came to a slow, complete stop right next to it and the protective field around the boat disappeared. The wind was stronger now, pushing the clouds overhead into shapes from a dream and whipping Kitt’s hair around his face.

The woman sitting next to him jerked back as a door opened on the sphere, the threshold only about half a foot above the waves licking at the building. The toad standing there was bigger than any Kitt had seen so far. He looked them over, his eyes searching and then smiled when he found Kitt, holding his hand out towards him and making his stomach clench nervously. 

Kitt looked at the toad in the boat for confirmation.

“Kitt Slater,” the driver said nodding at him.

Oh. This had to be his stop then. He swallowed, standing up on shaking legs and taking the offered hand slowly. It was the first time he actually touched a toad skin-to-skin, and he was surprised by how warm it felt, how dry his palm was.

The alien pulled him up easily, taking most of his weight as he hopped over to the door. Kitt didn’t know what to do, where to look, so he glanced at the boat one last time, but it was already leaving, sliding over the water not even disturbing the waves.

The toad stepped back. He was still holding onto Kitt’s hand and so he had no other choice but to follow him, the invisible door sliding shut, like it’s never even been there. 

Finally he got the courage to look around, feeling his jaw drop for the second time that day. From inside, the walls of the building were opaque, letting in the light, but softening it too, washing away the contours of the outside world.

There were multiple floors inside with staircases going up and down along the edge of the sphere, made from the same frosted-glass like material as the walls. There were also plants. A lot of them. Some were in floating pots, but most were in what looked like round, beautifully arranged aquariums suspended in this air.

The toad shifted beside him, and Kitt couldn’t really put off looking at him anymore.

He had to crane his neck to see his face.

The alien… looked  _ nervous _ . He was very tall, and had the same, flat and somewhat featureless face as the others he’d seen so far, but he looked to be a tiny bit chubbier.

The toad opened his mouth then closed it. He glanced down at their still clasped hands and frowned, quickly switching hands so he was holding Kitt’s right with his own right, then nodded to himself, like he’d just averted a crisis.

He shook Kitt’s hand very seriously - and for quite a few seconds longer than necessary.

“Hello, Kitt,” he said, his words slow and clumsy, and it took a moment for Kitt to realize that his translator wasn’t malfunctioning, but the alien was actually trying to use broken, heavily accented English. “My name is Tynik, and we are… wer… very happy to have you,” he said, his eyes intent, floundering through the words like it was the most important thing in the world. 

Kitt felt himself flush, his ears burning, his chest feeling too tight all of a sudden for the emotions he was feeling. 

“I… I. Thank you,” Kitt told him, surprised by how honestly he meant it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I BET YOU ALL THOUGHT THIS IS ABANDONED!  
> NUH-UH!
> 
> All my love for Emma who kept me going, and kept me from forgetting story even while I was working on other stuff <3

Kitt still had a hard time believing that this was actually real. Tynik, after their introduction, put in his own set of translators to show him around the… house. If one could call the bubble building a house.

There were even floors under the level of the water. Something he imagined to be a bedroom of sorts just under the surface that was bathed in the softest, most relaxing light he ever saw as the sun’s rays were filtered not only by the walls but also the water. There were more aquariums floating around and pillows and soft looking mattresses that reminded him of huge dog beds, if he wanted to be honest.

The level under that was a bath. The whole floor was covered in pools with only thin pathways separating them, some looking dark and green, some turquoise and almost half of the bottom was just a big hole filled with what appeared to be seawater. Kitt had no idea how the bubble didn’t flood. It was intimately dark; blue and dusky, except for the glass spheres floating in the air filled with plants that were shining softly, bathing everything in a gentle, yellowish glow.

It was absolutely breathtaking.

The floor above the sea-level sitting room was filled with cushions and low tables that had no legs, just slabs hanging in thin air, and a circular bench running all the way around the whole floor. There were decorations here; vases, trinkets he didn’t recognize. Most things were white, or made of the same opaque material the whole building was made of with the occasional splashes of blue and green here and there.

By the time they reached the smallest floor on the top Kitt didn’t think he could be surprised anymore.

How wrong he was.

“And this is your room,” Tynik said, leading him up the stairs. If he had been paying more attention to him, Kitt might have noticed how nervous he sounded again… But he wasn’t. For a second Kitt had the disconcerting feeling that he would be stepping into his own room at home, but the reality was almost more unbelievable.

It was the most eclectic collection of strange and familiar things he could ever imagine.

There was a bed, like the ones on the lower floor - round and soft - but it had a blanket and a pillow. Both with different Mickey Mouse patterns. There was a table floating to the side with a couple of potted orchids, a pile of notebooks, colored markers…

There was a bench by the wall around half the room, and on it he could see… Kitt blinked. The complete Encyclopedia Britannica. A dozen baseballs without a glove or a bat. A ceramic teapot. A potted cactus and a soccer ball.

“What do you think?” Tynik asked, jerking him out of his shock.

Kitt made the mistake of looking up at him. The toad was standing right next to him, bent over a bit to get them closer to eye level, his face… Hopeful? As strange as they looked, Kitt felt like he was getting the hang of reading their expressions.

“It’s…”

He didn’t know what to say. It  _ was  _ amazing. He never expected to see anything familiar in this new life, and he couldn’t help but feel warmed to his core by being surrounded by so many things from Earth.

At the same time.  _ Eclectic _ .

“It’s lovely,” he said finally with confidence.

Tynik grinned, showing off his teeth.

“Oh! That’s great! I… I know it’s… Well. I didn’t have much to go on. And there were some items we just couldn’t properly synthesize.”

_ What _ . Kitt walked over to the blanket, examining it. It felt soft and warm, just like real cotton, but now that he was looking at it from up close, he realize he couldn’t see any signs of seams.

“That’s amazing.”

Tynik made a little clicking sound that reminded him of a dolphin.

“Thank you! Oh! Here, let me show you your holo.”

He walked to the table picking up a white wand. It was about as wide as a finger and roughly a foot long. Kitt watched as Tynik pushed on the ends of it until the wand split apart, the sides breaking in the middle until they formed a square frame. As soon as the corners of it were in right angles, the middle of it flashed up with a holographic screen.

“Wow,” Kitt said, his eyes wide. Tynik prodded his finger into it until the menu turned English.

“Here,” he said proudly, handing it over. “It’s a simple model, but I thought it’s closer to your technology, so it will be easier to get used to.”

Kitt took the frame gingerly. The screen only had three options: Information, Media and Communication.

“I can update it later, if you get bored with it, but I thought it would be better to start with the basics.”

Kitt didn’t reply, gently touching the word Information. It felt strange. The screen wasn’t real, but he did feel the contact - a slight, buzzing warmth when his fingertip reached where the surface was supposed to be.

The screen lit up with topics from Language to Economy to Geography. Anything he could imagine.

Tynik shifted beside him, making Kitt freeze. He probably shouldn’t have ignored him. To his surprise the toad looked almost bursting with happiness.

“I will leave you to it,” he said. “You’re probably tired after… everything. I will get you when I have a meal ready?”

Kitt blinked at him. He didn’t expect to have any sort of privacy, not to mention his own room, but it seemed he was bound to be proven wrong on every turn.

“Okay. That… That would be great.”

Tynik nodded his head and disappeared down the stairs, leaving him to his own devices.

Kitt made a little nest for himself in the round bed, snuggling into his Mickey Mouse blanket and tapped on the Society topic.

***

As Kitt quickly learned, the toads were - unsurprisingly - not called  _ toads  _ but Ariks. Their planet, the Atrantes was covered with 97% water at this time. Kitt had to admit that he didn’t understand the details of the scientific explanation, but apparently the planet had cycles that lasted roughly a million years; there was a cold cycle when the planet would cool, the arctic ice caps grow and the sea-levels drop and in those times the percentage of dry land would grow to almost 20%. Now they were in a warm cycle. Had been for the last four hundred thousand years.

There was no huge landmass on Atrantes, not in the warm cycle anyway. That three percent of dry land consisted of millions of tiny reefs and islands scattered mostly around the equator of the planet, and their species evolved right where water meets land.

It was fascinating. Sure, Kitt saw - in old documentaries from before the collapse - that there were a lot of habitable planets out in the universe, but maybe for a lack of imagination he never even dreamed that they would be so different.

He also learned that about two hundred years ago the ariks were faced with a disease. Their population had about 5 to 1 male-female ratio to begin with, but the disease simply made females incapable of giving birth to other females. As advanced as their technology was, by the time they found a somewhat workable solution there were no female ariks left on the planet, and they were facing the extinction of their species. There were, of course, attempts made to gestate babies in facilities but the success rate was so low that it only dragged out the process.

And that was when the ariks turned to the stars. They had space travel before, even made contact with a few alien species, but in their desperation they invented a procedure that would allow them to modify people of other species to carry their young...

Ah. Kitt wasn’t sure he wanted to read more about that, even though it would have been the smartest thing to do. Not now. Not when he was still nervous about the future. 

He picked another subject.

Kitt curiously tapped on Media and almost fell out of his bed with shock.

Star Trek. The Matrix. Lord of the Rings. Brooklyn Nine Nine... The list went on and on, filled with show after show after movie of familiar titles.

Kitt didn’t know how to feel. He could barely remember what it was like to watch tv. Or to watch tv for anything other than the endless channels of depressing news.

Still, a small part of him was… grateful. He tapped on Spongebob and felt just a little less uprooted.

***

Tynik was trying to prod the food synthesizer into doing its job and create something that wouldn’t kill their brand new human when Satim appeared.

“Hello,” he said, wrapping his arms around Tynik from behind. He was still wet, so he imagined he must have swam all the way from the landing platform.

He spun around, palming Satim’s face in greeting.

“Welcome home,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

Satim dropped his head on his shoulder, his feelers were just shrinking back, brushing against Tynik’s fingers in greeting.

“Missed you,” Satim said. “Is Rokka back?”

Tynik shook his head, clicking at him in denial, making his podmate sigh.

They stood like that for a few moments, just enjoying the closeness after so much time apart, but finally Satim broke away from him, he was almost completely dry, and as soon as they weren’t touching his uniform regrew around him from the fabric synthesizer collar around his neck.

Tynik patted the insignia on his chest.

“So, Captain, want to greet our human, too?” he asked. Just as he said the words out loud the food synthesizer finally squeaked to life and filled a bowl with something that the display claimed to be ‘chicken soup’. 

Satim frowned at the machine.

“We need a new one of these,” he said, picking up the steaming bowl and almost dropping it. Thankfully Tynik was there with a tray he could slide it on.

“Is it supposed to be that hot?” Satim asked, blowing at his fingers. 

Tynik scrunched up his nose as he prodded at the display.  _ Chicken soup, main ingreedients include avian meat and plants, general comfort food, served at 115 fahrenheit (roughly 25 gpir).  _ Huh.

“It says so,” he replied with a shrug. There was no way they could eat that without burning their mouth, but apparently humans were better with these things.

Satim blinked at the food suspiciously, but made his way over to the stairs with Tynik following him close by, noticing how tense he was.

He hoped Kitt would be pleasantly surprised by seeing his podmate, even if they didn’t have time to talk about the arrangement after landing.

Satim abruptly stopped at the top of the stairs, and Tynik had to strain to see around him.

The boy was asleep, curled up in his bed, with the light of his holo still on, one hand hanging to the ground. It didn’t seem like a comfortable position to be in, but Tynik couldn’t help a small burst of warmth bubble up in his chest at the sight.

Satim chuckled, touching the controls on the wall and making the dome up here a bit more solid to dim the light before he turned around.

“Do you think we will be able to heat this up?” he whispered when they got back down.

Tynik grimaced. 

“I… actually have no idea if we have anything that can heat stuff to 25 gpir.”

***

Kitt woke to his arm falling asleep, and he couldn’t help but hiss as it filled with pins and needles as soon as he moved.

Even though it was darker in the room, he didn’t feel like he’d slept for a long time.

And anyway, how did time even work here? How long was a day? How…

He shook his head, taking a deep breath. No need to panic. He could - and he  _ would  _ \- find the answers on his holo later. Or whenever he wanted. The thought of all that information being only a few touches away helped to slow down his heart from it’s anxious gallop.

A small part of his brain still insisted that this might be a trap somehow, that there could be an agenda behind anything that he was given, but… There was no need for the Ariks to play games. They had all the power in this situation, and Kitt wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it if he was kept in a cage in a dingy basement.

For now, he decided that he would trust them.

Kitt stretched, getting up from his cot and then snuck closer to the staircase, trying to see below. He couldn’t spot anyone, but he could still hear people talking quietly.

That meant that Tynik wasn’t alone. Despite everything he felt his anxiety return as the questions rose in his head.

But there was only one way to find the answers.

Kitt descended the stairs as quietly as he could, and found the level underneath empty, so the voices must have come from the floor below. Which one was that? The sort of sitting room? He thought that was it… For a second, as he crossed to the stairs going down he could have sworn he smelled something familiar… Like, chicken soup? He quickly shook off the idea. Maybe he was just getting hungry.

He still felt a bit more confident when he stepped into the room below, the simple pleasure of being able to walk again putting a little bounce in his step.

Kitt immediately spotted Tynik, sitting by a table, his chin in his hand as he listened to another Arik talking. He was almost all the way across the room when he was noticed, making him stop dead in his tracks.

“You’re awake!” Tynik said, getting to his feet and pulling his partner… his podmate along too. It was only then, when he came face-to-face with the insignia on the arik’s chest that Kitt realized that he recognized him.

The captain. 

“Oh.” 

He didn’t know what to say. He could still remember that Satim had been nice to him. But at the same time he was still shocked to see him again. What were the chances?

“Hello, Kitt,” Satim said, stopping in front of him. Slowly, like he was afraid of spooking him. He raised his hand and laid his palm on Kitt’s cheek, his thumb brushing over the skin at the corner of his eye twice before he pulled back.

“Hi. Well… this is a surprise,” Kitt blurted out. 

Before Tynik could even open his mouth someone stomped up the stairs from below, making all of them turn.

It was another Arik. One that was lean and… and very naked, covered in faint scars and a lot of… wiggly, thin feelers coming out of his back and scalp.

Kitt could almost hear his jaw hitting the floor as he looked at him staring at them from the other end of the room.

“What the fuck is going on?” the new arik asked, and...

Well. Good question.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, all my love to Emma! <3
> 
> I hope you will enjoy the new chapter, and also, I would like to thank everyone who leaves a comment. Even if I don't have the energy to reply, they always make me smile and keep going <3

Tynik and Satim shared a look over Kitt’s head. He wasn’t good enough at reading their expression to figure out what exactly that was about, but he could feel them tense up.

The Ariks moved as one, Tynik taking Kitt’s arm and pulling him towards the stairs leading up while Satim strolled over to the naked guy. 

Kitt tried not to look. He really did. But yeah.

The strange Arik was leaner than the other two, and a bit shorter. As he watched, the feelers coming out of his skin slowly retracted back to wherever the hell they came from even as Satim talked to him in a hushed tone.

“Come,” Tynik said, sounding a bit overly cheerful. “We made you avian soup! And you should probably eat it before it gets cold.”

Kitt didn’t try to drag his feet, but followed him along. He didn’t want to seem nosy, and well… he was getting sort of hungry.

“Avian soup?” he asked, frowning when they reached the floor above.

Tynik blinked at him, frowning in confusion.

“No! Chicken!” he blurted out finally with a touch of triumph.

Oh. He wasn’t imagining the smell then.

The Arik led him to a low table, and Kitt obediently sat down on a pillow with his legs crossed, watching as Tynik puttered around, returning with a tray and a bowl, placing it carefully in front of him.

For a second he wondered how they got chickens on this planet, but then remembered what he was told about the stuff in his room.  _ Synthesized _ . 

He peered into his bowl with a tiny bit of suspicion. It looked fine. There were veggie stuff, and there were meat stuff floating in it, and it smelled nice enough… if he ignored the fact that all the solid parts were perfect spheres. Chicken didn’t come in balls. Nor did carrots.

But the soup smelled real enough to make his stomach growl.

Tynik jumped.

“What was that?” he asked, his eyes wide. “Are you alright? Are you feeling unwell?”

Kitt had no idea what he was talking about until he realized the Arik was staring at his belly.

“What? Oh! Oh, yeah!” he made a vague gesture towards his stomach. “It… uh. It’s a sound my body makes when it’s really hungry,” he explained, feeling silly.

Tynik opened his mouth and then closed it, visibly trying to collect himself.

“Ah. I see. Well, then you should try the soup. It should be good.”

Kitt looked back at the tray. There was no spoon, but he found himself too embarrassed to ask for one. Maybe they didn’t even use spoons here.

“Okay,” he said, more to himself than to Tynik. He could totally do this. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t poison him intentionally.

He lifted the bowl to his lips, it was still warm, though not enough to be steaming, and took a careful sip.

It  _ was  _ pretty good, actually. Could have used a bit more salt, but otherwise perfectly chicken soup-y.

Before he noticed what he was doing, Kitt was done with half of it, taking large enough gulps from the bowl to get some veggies and meat in his mouth. Everything tasted like it was supposed to, and even the textures were similar enough not to bother him.

Maybe he’d been hungrier than he imagined, because he finished the rest of his soup in a blink. 

Kitt put his bowl down with a clank and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 

Tynik was still standing in the same place, watching him with wide eyes.

“Um, thanks for the meal. Do you want me to do the dishes?”

The arik made a confused face.

“Do them? They are… they are already done?”

Oh. Kitt picked up his bowl, showing off the dirty bottom.

“No, I mean, like, clean them?” he asked, trying to make a… washing motion with his hand, feeling incredibly stupid.

“Ah!” Tynik said, lighting up with understanding. “No, no need! We will just desinthetize it,” he said, like that made any sense at all. He took the bowl and opened a part of the white bench around the room. It looked like a simple, low cupboard, but the Arik put the dishes inside and closed the door on them, smoothing his fingers over the top.

For a second, Kitt waited to see what would happen, but nothing did.

“That’s it?” 

Tynik nodded his head, opening the cupboard again. It was empty.

Wow. That was a magic trick if he ever saw one.

Kitt had a  _ lot  _ of questions.

But before he could ask them he could hear the others approaching.

He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous to face the new Arik again.

Thankfully he was dressed now. He wasn’t wearing one of the neat coveralls they all did, only a bathrobe kind of thing, though the fabric looked a lot thinner than a normal bathrobe would. 

“Kitt,” Satim said, “This is Rokka, our other podmate.”

“Um. Hi,” Kitt said. 

Rokka looked at him with his dark eyes, and when he took a step closer Kitt stumbled back one, his foot caught on a pillow and falling backwards.

He already closed his eyes and braced for the impact, but it never came. It never came, because Rokka had a hand fisted in the front of his coveralls, holding the weight of his body without even straining.

“You’re clumsy,” he said, pulling him back to his feet.

Kitt felt himself flush.

“Uh, I… Yeah, sorry. The legs are new.”

Rokka frowned and tipped his head to the side a bit until Satim nudged him, offering a pair of the translator earplugs. The Arik took them, only now letting go of Kitt’s coveralls.

“He said his legs are new,” Tynik put in from over Kitt’s shoulder, making him jump. Damn, they could be quiet for such huge creatures.

“Ah,” Rokka said, looking him over curiously. “You didn’t have legs? I didn’t have an arm once,” he admitted, grinning sharply and flexing the fingers of his right hand.

Kitt blinked, and then swallowed, somehow feeling totally out of his depth with this conversation.

“I. Uh, I  _ had  _ them, they just didn’t work, cause… My spine didn’t work,” he finished lamely.

Rokka nodded his head, looking almost impressed, then he walked around Kitt in a small circle that made him think of sharks swimming around lifeboats after a shipwreck.

“It works now,” he said, and Kitt could do nothing other than nod his head.

Rokka grabbed his arm and pulled him down to the pillows on the ground, sitting down opposite the boy. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and Kitt tried hard not to watch the way it made his robe open at the front, revealing his smooth skin.

The Arik cocked his head to the side again. Kitt wanted to say it was puppy-like, but with Rokka… everything seemed more  _ predator- _ like.

“Are you scared?” he asked with a glint in his eyes. “You look scared.”

“Rokka!” Satim said, sounding as close to annoyed as Kitt ever heard. Not like he heard him speak much, but the captain didn’t seem the sort who got easily riled up.

“Of you specifically? A little. Of the future? A lot,” Kitt blurted out, more honest than he meant to be.

Tynik made a distressed little sound and dropped down beside him. He was just… huge. The way he reached out, almost touching Kitt and then dropping his hand was almost comical.

Rokka’s eyes narrowed. The golden ring around his pupils disappearing almost completely.

“And you’re not afraid of  _ them _ ? They are bigger.”

Kitt glanced over to Tynik, who made him food, and looked at Satim who’d been so kind to him on the ship, and shook his head.

“You’re all huge compared to me,” he said with a shrug. There was some kind of challenge in Rokka’s gaze and against all common sense he found himself wanting to live up to it. “And out of the three of you, you’re the only one who actually looks dangerous.”

“What are you afraid of about the future?” Satim asked, his voice serious. He was the only one still standing, and Kitt had to look all the way up and up and  _ up  _ to see his face.

Kitt wasn’t sure how honest he should be. He knew… the purpose of why he was here, but so far everything contradicted his expectations. And still, he couldn’t shake of the feeling that there was another shoe and that it’s going to drop soon.

He probably should have done his research instead of watching Spongebob until he fell asleep, but there was no correcting that now.

“Well, the whole…” he vaguely waved between all of them, searching for the right words. “You know. The reason I’m here.”

“What about it?” Rokka asked, looking genuinely confused.

“Um, you know. I… I expected to… I don’t even know. End up as a sex slave or something? But everyone’s been nice so far, and I’m a bit confused about what you’re waiting for,” Kitt explained, the words rushing out of him.

“What we are waiting for?” Tynik asked, his voice a bit higher than what Kitt was starting to get used to, and even Satim looked tense.

“What’s a ‘sex servant’?” Rokka asked, baffled. There was something very… straightforward about him that made Kitt relax a bit, even if the other two were starting to make him nervous.

“What? No, sex  _ slave _ .”

“You just said sex servant again? That’s not an explanation,” Rokka told him, leaning forward enough that it made him want to scoot back.

“No I…” Kitt paused, the realization dawning on him. “Wait. Do you not have a word for  _ slave _ ?”

Rokka opened his mouth then closed it, and looked at Tynik.

“Your translators don’t work,” he said, making the other Arik splutter in indignation.

“They work! They work just fine!”

Kitt felt himself shrink, the last thing he wanted was to cause a fight, but Satim seemed to have things under control. 

“Stop it,” he ordered, and miraculously they did. Finally he sat down on Kitt’s other side, making him feel like he was surrounded by mountains.

“I imagine it’s a concept we’re not familiar with,” he said. “Can you describe what it means?”

Oh god. Did he really have to do this?

Kitt closed his eyes for a second. But. But Tynik fed him, and they’d created him a whole - awesome - room. He could deal with a little embarrassment, right?

“A slave is a person who is considered… um. To be an object? Another person’s possession. So a… a sex slave would be someone who would be used for sex? Whether they wanted to be or not?”

“Is that a thing you do a lot?” Rokka asked, looking way more fascinated by the subject than Kitt would have liked. Tynik reached out and punched his shoulder.

“No,” Kitt said quickly. “That’s not a thing we often do.  _ At all _ . It’s bad and it’s illegal.”

Not like ‘illegal’ meant anything here.

“But…” Rokka said slowly. “That would be a huge waste, right? To keep a person around and only use them once a year?”

It was Kitt’s turn to be confused. 

“What do you mean?”

“Humans don’t have a mating season. Or more like, they have a constant mating season,” Satim said. 

There was a second of silence, and then all of them started to speak at the same time.

“Wait, you  _ have  _ a mating season?”

“Oh my, that sounds exhausting, no wonder you struggled with overpopulation...”

“Well shit, no, that sounds awesome!”

“Stop it,” Satim said quietly, palming his face. “Just. Stop.”

Kitt wasn’t sure what made him shut up, the Arik just had a very… authoritative air around him.

“Thank you,” Satim said, turning to Kitt first.

“Yes, we have a mating season, it lasts for about two weeks, and it’s usually the only time when we procreate,” he explained before glancing over to Rokka. “And Tynik is right, it’s one of the reasons why Earth was so overpopulated.”

“And…” Kitt wasn’t sure he was ready for the answer, but he had to ask. “When is this… mating season?”

Tynik made a face like he was doing maths in his head.

“Oh, it’s… in about three months? I think. So, plenty of time to get to know each-other, right?” he asked eagerly.

“We know,” Satim said, looking into his eyes seriously, “That your species deals with sex differently from ours, but we hope that we can earn your trust by then.”

Kitt swallowed. Three months. It was more time than what he expected to have, but he wasn’t sure if it would be as much as he needed.

But it seemed like he would just have to wait and see.

“Um. Sure.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I would like to thank Nia_Kantorka for being so patient, and not - justifiably - killing me yet for not updating ;A;
> 
> All my love to Emma who kept bugging me about this story <3
> 
> I hope you guys will enjoy the new chapter!

Kitt went to his room afterwards, and thankfully nobody stopped him. His head was swimming with thoughts, and he immediately went for his holo to find the answers he needed and make up for not reading on before, about all the… sex stuff.

Apparently, the Ariks had one mating season a year, and it only affected the Ariks already in mating pods. Oh. Well, that explained a lot. 

Like not having sex slaves, for one. Because… that meant that during mating season, all of them who were in a relationship would want sex with their mates, right? It was pretty hard to wrap his head around it, but it sounded like that meant there was simply no non-consensual sex on this planet. At least between the Ariks. He tried to imagine that. Like, what if they had an argument right before? But then again, they would still feel the same biological urges. And since there were more than two people in a pod - usually three to seven - if someone wanted to be left out for some reason the others wouldn’t have to resort to rape.

Except.

Except that  _ he  _ wouldn’t be feeling those ‘urges’ at all. But Satim would. And Tynik. And  _ Rokka _ . They probably didn’t even consider his consent, taking their own biology as the base line. Maybe they didn’t even understand the concept.

Three months suddenly didn’t look that long. Not long at all.

***

The next three days were spent in tentative quiet. Kitt felt a bit on edge, his brain still waiting for something awful to happen, and every minute it didn’t come just made him more apprehensive. He bided his time by trying to learn as much as he could. 

He looked into the Arik language, feeling like it would give him an advantage, but had to realize that he wouldn’t have an easy time with it. Their words were full of clicks and whistles, and that was only one of their languages. The other one, that they apparently spoke under the water was impossible to learn for a human, he just wasn’t built to make those kind of noises.

Kitt knew he should make an effort to get to know his new… pod, but at the same time it was hard to leave the relative safety of his room. It was his space, despite how weird it was, and every time he walked down on the stairs he felt like he had to tread very carefully.

For the most time, the Ariks didn’t seem to mind, giving him as much space as he needed. Tynik was the one who usually got him when there was food, and while he saw Satim around too, Rokka was almost always gone. He was some sort of hunter? If what he could pick up was true, which he found a bit… weird? He couldn’t imagine what use a culture this advanced had for hunting things when they had synthesizers and all this high-tech stuff.

When he did leave his room for anything other than eating, it was for the baths. They were amazing, and he snuck down almost every night, carefully tiptoeing past the sleeping Ariks just to reach them on the lowest floor.

There were a lot of different pools, some warm, some cold, some smelling like metals. His favorite was one of the smallest, barely bigger than a bathtub. It had water hot enough to make his skin red after being in it for a while, but he absolutely loved it. 

It took Kitt an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to get out of his clothes, until he realized that if he submerged himself enough to get the collar of his coveralls wet, the fabric would simply dissolve, and then appear again when he was dry.

It was the  _ weirdest  _ feeling when it grew back.

On the third night of his stay, he was doing just that, lying in the hot water and sleepily watching the luminescence aquariums float above him, when he head something.

It made him jerk, splashing hot water all over the floor, and he made a startled sound as a head appeared from the big pond beside him, the one that was filled with sea water. He’d suspected that it had an underwater entrance below the surface, and now he had proof. 

For a second, their eyes met, and Rokka seemed just as surprised to see him as he was.

“What are you doing?” the Arik asked. He didn’t sound accusing, more… curious.

“Um… I was just… taking a bath?” Kitt stuttered out.

Rokka blinked, turning his head to the side, and then frowned, motioning to his ears. 

Oh.

Kitt bit his lips, then reached up to take out one of his own ear buds, handing it over. Rokka gave him a sharp toothed little grin.

“Thanks. What are you doing?” he asked as soon as he got it in.

“I’m taking a bath,” Kitt told him with a bit more confidence now that he had time to gather himself. “What are you doing?” 

Rokka didn’t come out of the water, planting his elbows on the edge, watching him. There was only about two feet separating them, and even with the low light, Kitt could see the interest in the Arik’s eyes. There was something so blunt about him that made Kitt feel at ease. Oh, he seemed unpredictable, and maybe even dangerous, but he was relatively sure Rokka was not into playing mind games.

“I’ve been out, checking on the rilans,” he added. It was weird to hear him with only one earbud, the translation audible overlaying his real words. He found their language to be beautiful in it’s own way.

Kitt recalled that rilans were a bit similar to whales, though smaller. He couldn’t help asking what he’d been wondering for so long.

“Why are you hunting? You have everything you need, right? You can just synthesize things, there’s really no need to kill stuff,” he blurted out. He regretted it almost immediately, because yeah. Rokka was apparently good at killing stuff, and Kitt was - for intents and purpose - a ‘stuff.’

But the Arik didn’t seem offended. He actually grinned wider, showing off is many,  _ many  _ sharp teeth.

“And where do you think all the raw materials come from that we use to synthesize the food? We can tweak and multiply the food, but you need  _ something  _ to make something.”

Oh. He didn’t even think about that. It was hard to grasp the concept of the Arik technology when it all seemed pretty much like magic to him. Kitt felt himself blush, feeling stupid.

“Oh, sorry.”

Rokka shrugged.

“As for why we hunt like we do… At one point in our history, we almost made rilans, and a bunch of other animals, go extinct by mechanized overfishing. Thankfully we caught things in time, and since then only traditional hunting is allowed. Sure, it’s a bit slower, and requires more manpower, but it creates jobs and keeps our lives sustainable.”

Kill pulled his knees closer to himself, the top of them breaking the water’s surface. That made sense. He wished humans had that foresight too, maybe then things would have went a different way back on Earth.

“If you want to see how it’s done, I can show you some clips on the holo,” Rokka offered, seeming eager to share for once. But then again, from what he had learned so far, hunting was the only thing that interested him.

“That would be good,” he said, surprised by his own honesty.

Rokka grinned, pulling himself out of the water. Kitt averted his eyes quickly. Rokka didn’t wear a synthesizer collar, and he was naked a  _ lot _ . Like now. Very naked.

To his embarrassment, Rokka didn’t get dressed, instead he sat down on the narrow path between the pools right beside him, cross legged. Kitt carefully didn’t look at him. He was still not used to this, and he sometimes wondered if Tynik and Satim were this fond of going around naked too, and just kept their clothes on for his sake.

“So, bathing? I thought your species didn’t like water?”

That made him pause. Well… compared to Ariks, they weren’t in the water that much, but he couldn’t really say humans didn’t  _ like  _ the water.

“Um… we’re… we’re not evolved to live in it like you are,” he said, curling in on himself more to protect his modesty a bit. “But we like it just fine. We bathe every day if we can,” he explained.

Rokka’s eyes lit up.

“Can you swim, too?” he asked, leaning forward, making Kitt want to retreat below the water.

“Yeah. Most of us can. But we can’t breathe under the water like you do, so… mostly just surface stuff.”

Rokka looked at him considering and then got up.

“Huh. Alright. Well, don’t stay much longer, you’re already as red as a keplír.”

Kitt didn’t know what a keplír was, but he nodded his head anyway.

***

The next day, he was surprised to find Rokka home. Kitt almost considered staying away from his room longer just to find out what he was doing, but then decided against it. It looked like Rokka wasn’t in the mood for talking anyway, more interested in bothering Tynik with something, following him around and talking in hushed tones.

Kitt didn’t know what that was about, but he wasn’t sure he liked it.

Instead, he went back up, curling up in his bed and after a moment of consideration searching his holo for ‘traditional rilan hunting.’

What he found was… all kinds of amazing.

Not unlike humans, Ariks were persistence hunters. They would separate a rilan from their group and then tire it out. Rilans were a bit bigger than orcas were on earth, they looked like smaller whales, but with round heads. 

Ariks hunted in groups, five or six of them, and they would follow the rilan around, switching around going up for air and not letting the animal surface, attacking it with harpoons whenever it tried to get a breath.

Rilans could hold their breath for three hours, so it wasn’t an easy task, and if they messed up, they would have to chase it around again. Rilans weren’t defenceless either, they had spikes on their tails and fins and they used them to try to break out and swat any Ariks that got in their reach.

Kitt suddenly understood the many faint scars that Rokka sported, and his claim of losing an arm once started to make a lot more sense.

Just watching the video of the hunters made him itch to get out and do… something.

***

After dinner - bite sized balls of what tasted disconcertingly like four-cheese pizza - Kitt went back up to his room again. He felt a bit weird ever since his chat with Rokka last night. Restless. A bit useless even… maybe. 

But at the same time, he didn’t know how to break the ice and start taking a more active part in this new life. The three months he had until mating season seemed very bleak.

He was just huddling in to sleep - not even feeling like sneaking down to the tub - when Rokka appeared by the stairs.

“Come with me,” he hissed, voice hurried and secretive.

This was probably a bad idea, but Kitt found himself jerking into motion, his heart thrumming with excitement.

Rokka led him down, past the bedroom where he could see Satim and Tynik curled up sleeping and to the bathroom level.

“What is it?” he asked quietly when they stopped. 

Rokka grinned, offering him a… whistle? It looked like a whistle to him, with a mouth piece and a round body, made of metal.

“It’s a breathing device,” Rokka said, sounding strangely proud. “Want to come and have a swim with me?”

Kitt couldn’t really explain what he was feeling. He took the whistle thing with unsteady hands.

Rokka must have misunderstood his hesitation, because he launched into a hushed explanation.

“I had Tynik make one for you; it will let you breath under water, and he said humans can go to 30 feet below the surface without a problem. I checked!”

Kitt felt himself smile wide - maybe for the first time since he had arrived here.

“Thank you,” he said. 

Rokka threw off his robe, and lowered himself into the water, looking at him impatiently.

“Well? Come on!”

***

The water was cool, like a caress around him, dark with only the pale moonlight shining from above. The chemical make-up of the water must have been different than Earth’s oceans, because he could keep his eyes open without a problem. 

He felt his chest swell with excitement and adrenaline, but as soon as he got used to breathing through his mouth and exhaling through his nose, it wasn’t hard at all.

Rokka took his hand after he got his bearings, pulling him deeper.

They were both completely naked, but it was dark enough that it didn’t bother him. He was much more taken with watching the Arik. Rokka’s back was covered with hundreds of slim feelers or tentacles that swayed gently from his movements.

Kitt knew by now that the feelers helped the Ariks stay under the water longer, filtering out oxygen and some nutrients they couldn’t get otherwise from their diet.

Rokka propelled himself forward with his powerful tail, pulling KItt along easily, and he just let himself be dragged into the darkness, feeling like he was flying.

“Do you like it?” Rokka asked in their strange, melodic underwater language. Kitt couldn’t reply, but he did nod his head, squeezing down on the Arik’s fingers. He could just barely make out the white flash of Rokka’s smile.

They swam by some more bubble houses, and closer to the reef Kitt saw on his way here. As they neared the rocky surface he almost thought that something was wrong, that his vision was tricking him, but soon he was corrected. The surface of the rock was teeming with life; corals, sponges, small fish… Some of them he was already familiar with - from the aquariums in the house - and they were even more luminescent and absolutely beautiful in their natural environment.

Rokka watched him examine them, holding his hand so he wouldn’t float away. Kitt couldn’t get enough of it, he didn’t think he had ever seen something this amazing.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see something bright appear, and if not for the breathing device his jaw would have dropped.

It was some sort of fish, but nothing like he could ever even imagined.

It had a pale body, about a foot long and large, lace like fins. The whole fish was transulescent, he could see the white bones in its slim, elegant body. It was luminescent too, much brighter than anything around them, like a bolt of moonlight come to life with bright, turquoise spots along its sides.

Kitt reached out tentatively, looking at Rokka to make sure it was okay. The Arik nodded his head. The fish didn’t seem afraid in the least as it swam by them, brushing against Kitt’s outstretched fingers. Its body was shockingly warm.

He kept looking after the dream like creature long after it was gone.

“And that,” Rokka said, grinning, “Is called a _kitt_.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STILL NOT ABANDONED!!!
> 
> Thank you so much to Emma, who holds my hand even when I don't deserve it <3
> 
> Nia_Kantorka, I hope you can forgive me

Kitt was still a bit dazed by everything when they returned to the house.

What he didn’t expect was both Satim and Tynik to be waiting for them. They didn’t look happy  _ at all _ .

He barely had time to blink the water from his eyes when Satim was reaching for him, grabbing him under the arms and pulling him out like he was a toddler, there was a second of silence, and then Tynik was shouting, loud enough that he jerked from the shock. It took him a moment to realize it wasn’t directed at him.

“I told you to wait a few more days! And! And you stole it! That was a prototype! I hadn’t tested it yet, Rokka!” the largest Arik said, looking more furious than Kitt thought him capable. “It could have stopped working half-way! It could have malfunctioned! I could have messed up the calculations of the gas components needed-”

“Are you alright?” Satim asked calmly, pulling him away from the argument and leaning down to be at his eye-level. His hand on Kitt’s shoulder felt warm after swimming in the cool ocean for so long. And heavy.

Kitt felt… awful. And it had nothing to do with  _ gas components _ . He pulled himself out of the Arik’s reach, covering his crotch with his hand, suddenly very aware that he was naked and that Rokka and Tynik were now shouting at each other and that… this was all his fault.

A treacherous part of him - that he hoped to have buried - immediately started whispering in his head about how it was just a matter of time until the Ariks realized too; that he was to blame. And then he would be here with three angry creatures vastly out-powering him, on a strange planet with no way to escape or protect himself. 

His blood was ringing in his ears and he felt like his throat was about to close up, unable to look away from Tynik and Rokka snarling at each-other.

Satim straightened up and Kitt couldn’t stop himself from flinching away. The Arik’s eyes narrowed, and Kitt wished he was better at reading him. Satim picked up Rokka’s discarded robe and handed it over to him. He wasn’t sure if Satim was being hesitant or if he was intentionally careful and slow with his movements... Still, the chance to cover himself was too good to pass up, and he quickly snatched the fabrik away. It was way too big on him, the hem brushing the floor, and the sleeves covering his hands. But finally he didn’t feel so exposed and vulnerable anymore.

Satim gave him another look and then turned to his podmates. Kitt watched them too. Tynik was bigger than Rokka, thicker and taller too, but Rokka didn’t seem to be cowed at the least, if anything, his body language was screaming that he would be quite happy with a fight.

Yeah, okay, he couldn’t…

As soon as he was sure nobody was paying attention to him, he booked it up the stairs as quickly and quietly as he was capable. He could still hear them arguing, and now Satim had joined in too. 

Kitt took out his translators and snuck his way to his room.

He wished there was a door he could close. Or at least a corner or something. He tripped on the last stair, his feet getting tangled in the too long robe, and he fell on his knee hard, biting his lip with enough force to taste blood but somehow managing not to make a noise.

Shit, that hurt. Kitt got up, feeling shaky all over, his heart still beating faster than it had any right to do. 

***

Tynik felt horrible. Rokka left after their argument - still fuming - and apparently Kitt was now scared and hiding in his room. Satim was even more silent than usual, his face closed off, his mouth tight lipped.

He spent the rest of the night doing some work for the department, unable to fall back to sleep.

He knew… he knew that he should have expected this. Rokka wasn’t the kind to think things through, and Tynik even understood that he had no bad intentions. 

Still, waking up in the middle of the night to find Rokka and Kitt missing and the breathing machine not where he left it had filled him with a dread that he couldn’t even describe. Thank god Satim had been there to calm him down.

They’d been just about to go out and look for their wayward podmates when they returned, and… Yes, Tynik knew he should have been more level headed, shouldn’t have started an argument in front of their human but he’d been worried out of his mind and he couldn’t help all that pent emotion turning into anger as soon as he laid eyes on Rokka.

He couldn’t remember the last time they had a fight like that.

Tynik wondered if Rokka was acting so irresponsibly because they blindsided him a little about getting a breeding mate… They’d talked about it before, of course, they agreed to do it, even, but Rokka had been hunting for two whole weeks with no way to communicate when Satim told him that he wanted to bring Kitt home. There were so many pods waiting for breeding mates that it was impossible to just… wait. 

He sighed, blinking at his holo screen, not really seeing what he was looking at until the sun came up.

***

Kitt built himself a hiding place. It was probably weird, it felt weird, even, but he couldn't help. He could remember looking at the pictures of all those huge, open plan apartments in the old magazines Carla brought him sometimes and thinking... Yes, that's the life! But apparently there were times when open was just... too open.

He pulled the desk closer to the wall, so it slid above the circular, low cupboards-bench things, hanging over them like a little roof. There wasn't much space under it, but he still managed to push his round bed underneath and then he pulled his Mickey Mouse blanket out and draped it over the whole thing. It wasn't that cold anyway.

Kitt had to hiss when he climbed under. It was a tight fit, and his knee was still smarting from his fall, but when he finally managed to disappear into his 'burrow' he felt... good. He never had the kind of childhood with friends and building pillow forts. This was probably the closest he got to that experience, and if he wanted to be honest, he kind of understood the appeal now.

***

Tynik woke tired. He had managed to take a short nap after Satim left to talk to Command about his next mission. Hopefully not too soon. Still. The house felt incredibly empty with both him and Rokka gone. 

He stretched out, feeling his back pop. His skin felt itchy, as it usually did when he went for too long without swimming. He would have to get to that soon if he didn't want to start cracking. But first things first: Kitt.

He felt himself tense up just from the thought. He wasn't usually the kind of person to get into shouting matches. He knew that he was... big. Even for an Arik. He didn't have the athletic build Rokka had, or the commanding presence of Satim. He was just. Big. He couldn't even imagine what it felt like for a human to see him like that. Frankly, he was ashamed of himself.

Tynik made his way up to the top floor slowly, trying to stay quiet. It was still early. Maybe their Kitt was still sleeping. Maybe he would feel better after he rested. 

He felt horrible for not paying more attention to him yesterday. That's what he should have done, instead of getting in a fight with Rokka. That would have been the right thing to do. Looking after their new podmate. 

The second he looked into Kitt's room, he felt his stomach twist with worry. The plants had been carefully put on the floor, the room was rearranged to create a little hiding place. He didn't think humans were a burrowing species, but the whole thing screamed 'need to hide' at him, and it was like someone twisting a knife in his belly. 

He was responsible for this.

Tynik carefully made his way over and sat down in front of what he assumed to be the entrance of the contraption.

"Are you awake, Kitt?" he asked, trying to keep his voice as soft and gentle as possible. He had done enough damage already.

He could hear movement from inside, and he had to twist his fingers together not to start fretting and pulling the fort apart.

"I don't have my translator," came a minute later. Kitt sounded hesitant and a bit sleepy. It was more than he hoped for. 

"Where did you leave them?" he asked before he realized what he was doing. He wanted to slap himself. "Oh! Never mind! I mean..."

He got up before he confused Kitt even more and looked around, finding the earbuds by the door. He grabbed them quickly before sitting back down. He wondered what he should do, but in the end, he decided to gingerly lift one corner of the blanket and push them in slowly.

Kitt's fingers brushed against his when he took them.

"Thanks."

There was a bit of silence.

"What... what did you want?" Kitt asked.

Tynik licked his lips. 

"Ugh, just... just wanted to ask if you were awake."

Kitt snickered, and the sound of it made something tight and nervous in Tynik chest relax.

"Yes. Yes, I'm awake."

He grinned. He didn't feel quite brave enough yet to ask Kitt to come out, but maybe... just maybe they would be okay.

But Tynik had to apologize first.

"I'm sorry for last night," he said, leaning forward like it would help him see inside and to be able to tell what Kitt was feeling. "I didn't want to scare you, I just... It wasn't your fault, but it was very irresponsible from Rokka to take you out like that."

There was silence. Tynik wished someone else was home, just so he could be distracted by the noises they made.

"It's my fault," Kitt said finally, his voice very small. "It's not like he made me do it."

Tynik shook his head, even though the human couldn't see him.

"No, no! It's... he knows better. He  _ should  _ know better."

"He was just being nice," Kitt said, accompanied by more shuffling from inside. "And I liked it. He showed me the fish. The fish you call kitt. Like me."

Tynik couldn't help feeling a small burst of irritation. He'd found it lovely, that their newest mate's name coincided with one of the most beautiful fish on this side of the globe. He hoped... He hoped that one day they could show it to him together, that it would be a moment to bond.

But no. Of course not. Of course Rokka had to go ahead and spoil it. 

"It was fun," Kitt continued, unaware. "I liked getting out a bit."

"Okay," Tynik said, not knowing what else to do. He couldn't concentrate on being hurt by Rokka. He had to pay attention to Kitt now. Make sure that he was okay. "It's a very pretty fish."

Just like you, he wanted to say, but didn't.

"I..." Kitt sounded hesitant again, and it put Tynik on edge right away. "I hurt myself a bit."

"What?! Ho…? When? In the water? Oh damn, I should have checked you over yesterday-"

He had half a mind to just pick the desk up and throw it off the boy, but stopped himself in the last second.

"No! I just, I just fell on my way up the stairs when I was coming up," Kitt said, his voice hurried. "It's nothing serious. I'm just a little bruised."

Tynik took a careful breath through his nose. 

"Would you come out so I can see?" he asked, not bothering to hide the tint of desperation in his voice. He wasn't sure what he would do if Kitt said no, what with the worry now eating his insides.

"Okay," Kitt said finally, making him sag with relief. He scooted back to give the boy more space. 

His hair was a mess of dark curls, even more so than before, but what Tynik watched was the little flinch as he got on his knees to climb out. 

"Hey," the boy said sheepishly when he was finally sitting opposite him.

"Hello, Kitt," Tynik said, his fingers itching to check him over, but he was careful not to make any sudden movements. "Where are you hurt?"

Kitt extended his leg, hesitating.

"This coverall is too tight to pull up," he said, pointing a bony finger at his knee. "But here."

Tynik reached over, tearing them open, making the boy squeak. 

"It's okay. They will fix themselves," he said, wincing as the big, blue bruise came into view. It looked painful and glaring against the human's light skin. 

"Can you stand up?" 

Kitt blinked at him.

"Um. Sure? It's not that bad, just probably needs a bit of rest."

Tynik had read up about human biology and first aid the second he knew Kitt would be coming to them. He knew that this wasn't an uncommon or serious injury, but the bruise looked... big and dark and horrible and he didn't want to wait until it went away by itself. He didn't want to let Kitt be in discomfort for even a second if he could help it.

"I can heal it," he said, almost as much to himself as the human. "Can I... can I pick you up?"

"I can walk!" Kitt said, immediately defensive, and reminding Tynik that before... before coming to the Ariks he couldn't use his legs at all.

"Of course," he said, holding his hands up with their palms out as he saw in a video that the Command sent out about pacifying scared humans. "I just... you said it needs rest."

Kitt blew a wayward curl from his face, his cheeks colored with a flush.

"I can walk, okay? Just down the stairs, right?"

Tynik was trying to choose his battles so he nodded, getting up and holding his hand out for the boy.

"Just downstairs."

***

Kitt was - once again - amazed by the Arik's technology. As soon as he was down the next floor, Tynik rummaged around for a little device that looked slightly like an epi-pen and lay the tip of it against the bruise, pressing lightly. He could see it with his own eyes as the discoloration disappeared, the swelling around the joint receding. 

"Is that better?" Tynik asked, his voice hopeful. It was hard to remember what he was like yesterday, fighting with Rokka. 

"Yes, thanks," Kitt told him, a bit awed. 

The Arik grinned, straightening out his coverall so that the torn edges above his knee were touching and the fabric knitted itself together like magic.

Kitt's eyes wandered, spotting the breathing device on one of the desks. 

"And thank you for that too," he said, not really looking at Tynik. "I'm sorry you guys got into a fight because of it."

Tynik carefully laid one of his big hands on the side of his neck, just for a second. His palm was cool and smooth.

"You're very welcome. I'm glad it worked, and I hope we can use it again...  _ After  _ it's properly tested and I can be sure it's safe."

Kitt nodded his head, trying to convince himself that it would really be okay. It looked like it might, however strange it seemed.

"Well, it’s already great. You're like, really smart," he blurted out, and for the first time, he could actually see Tynik blush. It was different than a human’s; just a little, warm discoloration around his eyes, but it was definitely there.

"Thank you, Kitt."

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at udunie.tumblr.com
> 
> Please leave a comment if you liked it!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ["And that... is called a Kitt" Fan Art for Chapter 6 of Atlantis by Udunie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15660501) by [OftheValkyrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OftheValkyrie/pseuds/OftheValkyrie)




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